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Plains Militia
The Plains Militia was formed in the settlement of Belfield in North Dakota in 2201 on the ideal of bringing peace and order to the area. After its creation, the Militia spread for a few brief years before a decline in the mid-2200s. In an attempt to stay relevant and expand its ideal, the Plains Militia became a founding member of the American Northern Army. This security came at the cost of their independence, and the Militia has steadily become less distinct from the rest of the ANA. However, the Plains Militia is still infamous in the ANA for their notorious black and white views on morality and generally being old fashioned. History Origins The town of Belfield sat along caravan routes and relied on them for its livelihood. This worked well enough for most of the 2100s, since the townspeople were enough to repel raiders, and the caravan traffic deterred most from attacking Belfield. However, this changed in the late 2100s as raider groups began to grow in size and threat. Some of the larger groups even managed to pull off successful raids on Belfield, and this perturbed many townspeople. In 2201, the people of Belfield decided to form their own organized militia. This was accomplished in no time, and within a few months, the Plains Militia was born. The Plains Militia, at its creation, was given the best equipment available to combat the raider threat. The live-fire training took many lives before the militiamen even saw battle. When the Plains Militia saw action against their first raider band, they emerged victorious with their superior weaponry and tactics. However, the raiders soon wised up to these tactics and in 2203, raiders managed to ambush most of the Plains Militia in the Fryburg ruins. All but twelve of the Plains Militia were killed in the attack with half of them deserting. Five militiamen made their way back to Belfield. To the townspeople, it looked as if all was lost, and many began packing in anticipation of the raider attack. However, only a week after the Battle of Fryburg, a wanderer from the north arrived in Belfield. Rebuilding This wanderer was Chris Richardson, a visionary and highly opinionated man from Tall Town. Richardson used to be a commander in the Tall Town until the 2203 coup, when he left in disgust. Now wandering the roads of North Dakota, Richardson came across Belfield and decided to stay at Trappers Inn for the night. The next day, June 4, 2203, the raiders finally arrived back in Belfield to reap what the Plains Militia sowed. The entire town was sacked, save for the Tappers Inn defended by the remnants of the Plains Militia led by a dazed and confused Chris Richardson. After this, Richardson was offered the option to become the Plains Militia's new leader. Hoping he could ultimately make something better than the corrupt military he had once served, Richardson accepted and became the Plains Militia's new general. Instantly, the new General decided to make Trappers Inn his new headquarters. General Richardson put his "Buffalo Soldiers" through hell to prepare them for the fight and had no scruples in letting one man die to teach another a lesson. Although they needed everyone they could get, the Plains Militia was only for the quick and resourceful, not the slow and stupid. Another thing the General instilled in the Plains Militia was his strict moral code. A Catholic of distant Irish descent, General Richardson instilled his antithetical views of good and evil on the group. "We are good, the raiders are evil" Also, Richardson's views on corruption, carried over from his experiences in Tall Town, influenced Belfield for decades to come, with the town's mayor and bureaucracy being kept under a tight leash. General Richardson and the Plains Militia clashed with raiders for the entire winter of 2203 into the spring of 2204. Belfield sustained a lot of damage, and many townspeople fled north to the safety of Tall Town. By 2204, the raiders decided the battle was not worth it and left around the summer of 2204. After this victory, General Richardson adapted to peacetime quite well, assisting in policing the town and guarding caravans of "moral traders". This led to slow and steady growth in the town, and Belfield prospered in the early 2200s. The Plains Militia objective of killing criminals was, for the most part, laid to the wayside in favor of peace. In 2214, General Richardson decided to expand the Plains Militia's reach outside Belfield. Four settlements agreed to enter the Plains Militia's protection, but they were small ones. General Richardson wanted the big fish. Sending emissaries north to establish trade with Tall Town, the town mayor and General Richardson were expecting to contact Drew Avery, Richardson's former commander. Instead, they were surprised to meet Jesus 3000, a Robo-Brain with a savior complex who now ruled Tall Town. The robo-brain refused their offers and crucified their envoys. Not wanting a panic, the mayor and general covered this up and focused more on raiders again. As time went on and Tall Town grew more unstable, Belfield began to prosper from more caravan traffic. General Richardson managed to stave off raider attacks on Belfield's caravans but did not go out of the town for fear of another Fryburg. In 2224 as the Plains Milita established outposts outside Belfield, General Richardson sent a messenger to Timber Lake. He wanted the courier service there, Buckthorn Deliveries, to set up a service between the outposts so they could be well supplied. Buckthorn accepted graciously and the outposts prospered. By the 2230s, raiders had become fed up with the Plains Militia being a thorn in their side. This resentment, combined with hate for other civilized factions, were what brought on the Great Raider Wars. The Great Raider Wars Initially, the Plains Militia managed to beat off the raiders with their better equipment and training, winning great victories in 2239 and 2240. However, by the mid 2240s the Great Raider Wars had worn down the Plains Militia, General Richardson in particular. Now an old man, Richardson had stubbornly fought on for years but after a skirmish with raiders right outside Belfield, he saw his limitations. Realizing he was unfit to continue, Richardsom resigned from being general and gave command of the Plains Militia to his lieutenant Patricia Barns, a ghoul (and rumored to be Richardson's lover). As the 2240s wore on, the Great Raider Wars took an even greater toll. One of the Plains Milita's protected towns, a logging camp called Spittle, was attacked and destroyed by raiders in 2248. This made many in Belfield indignant at raiders' gall, and the Plains Militia fought on. By 2250, the Plains Militia had been reduced drastically in number but had managed to survive in the face of the raider hordes with no outside support. It was for this reason they were surprised when envoys from the New-Merican Society in Tall Town came to Belfield carrying an offer from their president: merge their two militaries into an army unseen in the post-war world. General Barns and Belfield's mayor were skeptical of this offer, seeing it as a blind power grab by Tall Town. However, somehow, the envoys managed to get to the now senile Chris Richardson and the former general advocated the deal with gusto. The old man, still extremely influential in the town and militia, managed to sway public opinion in favor of the deal. Due to overwhelming popular demand, the mayor and general signed the agreement alongside Richardson, thus creating the American Northern Army. General Barns was reluctant to cede her position as general to the leader of the New-Merican Militia but eventually relented and accepted the rank of Brigadier General. American Northern Army In the first years, the Plains Militia were grateful to be in the ANA together with the New-Merican Society, seemingly staving off the raiders. By 2254, the Great Raider Wars had ended, and the ANA declared victory. Chris Richardson died in 2255, complete in his goal of defeating the raiders of the Badlands Territory. After the end of the Great Raider Wars, the Plains Militia were allowed to return to Belfield and saw the town become secure. However, even as Belfield prospered, the Plains Militia's power waned. They were progressively more close to the New-Merican Society and part of the ANA, becoming less of their own organization. The Plains Militia's Brigadier General, Patricia Barns, was beginning to resent the ANA leadership in Tall Town and decided to strike back with a cultural reaction. Barns began giving her troops "special psychological training" and putting up propaganda in Belfield. This reactionary backlash alarmed the ANA. Combined with their decline of influence in Tall Town, the ANA was seeing a decline in relevance. In reaction to Barns' actions, the ANA exerted more control of the Plains Milita through proxy and locked many of Barns' supporters out. By 2260, Barns had lost most of her supporters in the Plains Militia's leadership and had failed in her attempt at cultural independence. Vices such as slavery, chem addiction, and gluttony permeated Belfield from Tall Town. Barns eventually just gave up trying to clear out "the filth" and just sulked. Things changed in the late 2250s. The threat of Custer's American Army began looming in the south and the Plains Militia, being on the ANA's southern border, began to ready themselves for war. However, the standoff to the south was resolved peacefully, which left Barns even more resentful of the American Northern Army for, in her words, "backing down to a dictator". In 2263, Brigadier General Barns decided to resign her commission in the American Northern Army and handed off leadership to another ghoul, Zardoz. Zardoz proved to be a popular, if eccentric, leader of the Plains Militia. He eased up the moral issues of the Plains Militia and tried to improve their image as partners in the ANA. This only partially succeeded, with the morality of the Plains Militia being mostly unchanged. The Plains Milita, watching the ANA's southern border, did little else for most of the 2260s and 2270s. The lull lasted until 2280. Custer finally lost his patience with the Dakota Regulators after the Battle of Vault 52 and overran their positions in Rapid City. An act of war against the ANA, the Plains Militia readied for the War of the Generals. Most of the Army of the North assembled in Belfield, the ANA's southern border, in 2280. The Army, the Plains Militia included, intended to march south into Custer's territory and confront the "dictator" once and for all in a pitched battle. What they actually found to the south were a series of trenches on the North Dakota-South Dakota border, a region soon to be known as the Borderlands. The initial battles in the Borderlands were quick, bloody affairs for the ANA (and the Plains Militia). Zardoz himself was killed in battle against Indians, and the young Roger Adams was promoted to Brigadier General. After these first battles, the ANA decided to dig in themselves to avoid a counterattack from the south. For most of 2280, the Army of North was still engaged in the Borderlands. By winter, warfare in the Borderlands had grinded to a halt and both sides spent their time peeking over no man's land at their enemies. However, by 2281, yet another threat had emerged to far north: the Canadian Liberation Army. A fair portion of the ANA was redeployed to combat this threat, but the Plains Militia, along with a few other small militias, were kept in the Borderlands to stave off a possible counterattack from Custer. There they have stayed for six years, with only occasional vacations back to Belfield and Tall Town. They do this with the knowledge that Belfield is secure and prosperous because of their sacrifice. During the Plains Militia's time in the Borderlands, they have learned the art of trench warfare backwards and forwards, including the use of the shovel as their primary weapon. Their strict work regimen and moral standards have kept them from mass deserting, and most of the Plains Militia feel their cause is worth fighting (and dying) for. Brigadier General Adams feels like he is just a cog in a wheel of the ANA and holds healthy disdain for the ANA's leadership and Tall Town for their treatment of him and his men. Currently, the Plains Militia is in the Borderlands, still holding the lines against Custer and Border Bandits. Culture Once a utilitarian militia with a moral code, the Plains Militia has over time devolved into a stricter arm of the American Northern Army. This is due to the influence of the New-Merican Society in Belfield, and the Plains Militia's loss of identity since joining the ANA. Equipment The Plains Militia were, at first, only equipped with the most basic of weapons. For firearms, this meant pipe weapons and crossbows. The signature melee weapon of the Plains Militia was and still is the shovel. Nowadays, the Plains Militia is as well equipped as the rest of the ANA due to their close location to Tall Town, the source of the ANA's industry. This meant service rifles and other better ranged weapons. Notable Members General Chris Richardson The spiritual founder of the Plains Militia, General Chris Richardson was a harsh but fair man. Once part of the Tall Town Militia, Richardson used his training to assist the Plains Militia against raiders in 2203 and led the Militia to victory ultimately. General Richardson was the one who instilled high moral standards and utilitarian values onto the Plains Militia. He also lived to see the Plains Miltia unite with the ANA in 2250 and break the back of the raiders of the Badlands Territory in 2254. Whether he had a ghoul fetish is up for debate. Brigadier General Roger Sykes Adams The current leader of the Plains Miltia, Brigadier General Roger Sykes Adams leads this men in battle in the Borderlands. A protégé of Patricia Barns, Adams wants to assert the Plains Militia's power and identity while not directly defying the ANA. This has been largely unsuccessful, and his failure, combined with the grind of trench warfare, has given Adams a bad case of depression. He often has problems sleeping at night. However, Brigadier General Adams' men give him hope, as their resolve and optimism often makes him less jaded, even if only for a day or so. A large ration delivery or even just a letter from home has taught Adams to appreciate the little things. Quotes By About Category:Groups Category:Badlands